1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a method and apparatus to associate a graphic icon in an Internet virtual world with a user's experience in the real world, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus to update a graphic icon representing a user in the Internet by reflecting information regarding the user's experience in the real world in the graphic icon.
2. Description of the Related Art
Nowadays, the Internet has become an important part of everyday life. In particular, expressing oneself through a mini-homepage, a blog, and/or a private messenger has become very popular. Furthermore, with the advent of virtual worlds (such as Second Life), characters expressing users in the Internet have become commonplace.
An avatar (i.e., a graphic icon expressing oneself in a virtual world) refers to one's other self or an incarnation and is a compound word of Sanskrit Ava, meaning “coming down,” and Terr, meaning “the earth.” In ancient India, an avatar denoted the incarnation of God who had come down to Earth. However, in the Internet era, an avatar denotes an animation character or a graphic icon representing a user in a virtual world, such as a cyberspace. Moreover, the term avatar may refer more widely as an online identity. At present, avatars are widely used in online chatting services (such as icon chatting and three-dimensional (3D) graphic chatting), and various other genres (such as online games, cyber shopping malls, virtual education, virtual offices, and animation). Users may have a human relationship through avatars, enjoy chatting, play games, exchange information, and learn again how to see, read, speak, and behave.
Thus, an avatar may be a virtual body representing oneself in a graphic-based virtual world. Most conventional avatars are 2-dimensional (2D) images. Avatars in mud games or online chatting forums are relatively basic. Recently, however, realistic 3-dimensional (3D) avatars with 3D effects are being used. An avatar connects the real world to cyberspace and can be anonymous or represent a real person. While Internet users in the past were fascinated by the anonymity of cyberspace, Internet users nowadays want to express themselves and use avatars to satisfy both of these desires.
Most games and chatting services combine several characters or provide ready-made avatars. However, graphic technology has developed to the point where exclusive avatars with personalities generated by users (such as character identifications (IDs)) have been used by replacing ready-made avatars generated by service providers.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a conventional user-based avatar generation system. Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional user-based avatar generation system includes a 3D scanner 100, an avatar generation module 110, a fitting module 120, a transmission module 130, an avatar database (DB) 140, an item DB 150, and a body DB 160.
The 3D scanner 100, which is driven by a user or an arbitrary manager, performs 3D scanning of the user, generates 3D pattern data, and transmits the 3D pattern data to the avatar generation module 110. In this case, the user can scan a face and/or whole body of the user by using the 3D scanner 100. The 3D scanner 100 generates 3D facial pattern data corresponding to the face of the user and/or 3D body pattern data corresponding to the whole body of the user.
The avatar generation module 110, which includes a graphic tool, generates a 3D avatar image of the user by using the 3D pattern data generated by the 3D scanner 100 and stores the generated 3D avatar image in the avatar DB 140. When the avatar generation module 110 receives the 3D facial pattern data from the 3D scanner 100, the avatar generation module 110 generates a 3D facial image and generates a 3D avatar image by reading bodies stored in the body DB 160, displaying the read bodies on a predetermined display device, and combining the 3D facial image and a body selected by the user from the displayed bodies.
The fitting module 120, which is driven according to a fitting request of the user, displays various items (e.g., dresses and accessories) stored in the item DB 150 on the display device by reading the various items from the item DB 150. Furthermore, the fitting module 120 displays the 3D avatar image on a display device by adding items selected by the user onto the 3D avatar image.
The transmission module 130 receives information on a terminal, input by the user, to which the 3D avatar image is transmitted, and provides the 3D avatar image fitted according to the fitting request of the user or the 3D avatar image generated by the avatar generation module 110 to the terminal. In this case, the information on the terminal to which the 3D avatar image is transmitted may be information (e.g., an Internet protocol (IP) address, e-mail, etc.) on a mobile terminal or wired terminal of the user. If the information on the terminal to which the 3D avatar image is transmitted is information on a mobile terminal of the user, the transmission module 130 transforms and transmits the 3D avatar image to be transmitted to the mobile terminal of the user in a multimedia messaging service (MMS) pattern.
However, this conventional user-based avatar generation system has the inconvenience that a user must determine every feature of the avatar on a personal computer (PC). That is, information on the user cannot be reflected on the avatar in an offline mode. Thus, an avatar cannot fully express information on the user 24 hours a day. Recently, a method of directly accessing the Internet through a mobile device and updating the contents of an avatar has been studied. However, this method is not different from the prior art in that a mobile device is just used instead of a PC.